From GregB - Mydas the Mean and Bodyguard (80 points)

Mydas the Mean, Sheikh Yadosh and a bodyguard unit, ready to ensure the gold is collected and the payroll is made!

Merry Christmas and happy new year to everyone in the Challenge! I've been using the holiday to get the brushes rolling, and for my second submission we have another addition to my old-school GW Dogs of War project.

Mydas the Mean - great at financing, and also pretty good at fighting! He keeps the key to his pay chest close, where he can be sure it is safe...

Another view of Midas, with his wicked mace, ready to resolve pay disputes...

Ask anyone in business, large or small - payroll is a real administrative pain in the @ss! Everyone wants to get paid, and if you can't make payroll, you'll have "employee engagement" problems. If those employees are heavily armed Tilean mercenaries, "employee engagement" problems will get pretty violent, pretty fast...enter Mydas the Mean, mercenary paymaster. Mydas is accompanied by Sheikh Yadosh, his trusty money lender, and a group of bodyguards. 

Sheikh Yadosh showcasing the goods!

Mydas, Sheik Yadosh and the mercenary pay chest are part of the classic GW Dogs of War figure range. In the Dogs of War mercenary army, the pay chest takes the place of the army standard bearer in other armies - after all, what would be more important for the mercenaries than making sure they get paid? Mydas is on hand to make sure all of the Regiments of Renown get their fair share when payday arrives - one of the more feared paymasters in all of Tilea! He's great at gathering the money, a lot more careful on the cash outflows.

Bodyguards ready to defend the pay chest - these are metal castings from Perry Miniatures' Italian Wars range.

The money lender, Sheikh Yadosh, is a creditor of Mydas', following him around during his various military adventures across the Old World and lending money to mercenaries who need a temporary cash boost while purchasing supplies...or gambling...probably more of the latter than the former!

Ready for action - heavy armour, bright colours, and some serious weapons.

Of course, payday can get pretty rowdy, and a chest full of treasure needs protection, so the paymaster can be accompanied by a unit of bodyguards. In the game, the bodyguard can serve as a small unit of troops, taking their place in the battle line to guard the pay chest while it projects its morale-boosting effects out to the mercenary troops. 

Multi-part plastic figures from Perry Miniatures' - perfect command group for the bodyguards! They have expensive armour - after all, Mydas has the money to kit them out. 

Mydas, Yadosh, the pay chest and the humble donkey were one of the original box sets GW released as part of their "Dogs of War" miniature range. They did not, however, release any bodyguard figures specific to this miniature range. And maybe they never intended to? Why would they? In the rules, they are specific that the guards would wear heavy armour and carry halberds, as opposed to pikes, and this kind of makes sense when you consider that the main worry of the bodyguards is probably the other mercenaries :) 

The classic figures from the "Mydas the Mean" box set.

At any rate, there were a whole ton of halrberdier figures to be sourced from the Empire figure range of the day, so I suspect this is why they never released specific bodyguards. But fast forward to today, and those companion halberdier sculpts are long-gone. Yes, the new "Old World" game is out and about, complete with Empire figures, but these current Empire figures are a poor match to the old Tilean sculpts. What to do? Well, I spotted an ideal solution in a Dogs of War Facebook group - another hobbyist just used some figures from the Perry Miniatures' Italian Wars range, and it looked perfect! After all, the Perrys sculpted the Dogs of War figures, and Tilea is just the Old World's answer to Italy, so the figures made for perfect bodyguards!

One more group photo...

The guards are a mix of metal halberdiers, with a plastic command group. The banner is from an actual Italian Wars range...I thought it fit fine in the Tilean setting, and I really pleased with how the gang looks! These modern Perry sculpts are a little taller than the old GW sculpts, but then I can imagine Mydas would only hire the biggest fellows he could find to guard his pay chest!

So we come to the tally:

- 13 x 28mm foot figures for 65 points.

- 1 x donkey...let's count him as another five points?

- 1 x treasure wagon...let's count it has a crew-served weapon, maybe make it 10 points?

So assuming Curt is good with all of the above, I would make this out to score 80 points - and a happy mercenary army on my shelf, as they now see there is an actual pay chest on hand to ensure they get paid!

GregB

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This is fabulous, Greg. I remember reading the Dogs of War army book all those years ago, and loving the whole concept of the mercenary paychest, it's guardian, Mydas the Mean along with his partner Yadosh the money-lender. So characterful and cool. It's almost like GW lost its mind for a short period of time, allowing these quirky, non-conforming, characterful side-projects to come into fruition.

I also think it's terrific that you drew upon the Perry's Italian War range to fill-out Mydas' bodyguards. Inspired, that, and masterfully done! Especially as I know you've been wanting to try your hand with the Italian Wars, and this has provided the perfect vector. Perhaps we'll see some more Tilean units bolstered the same way?  That would be very cool.

80 drachmas for your tally! Well done!

- Curt

From StephenS: Santa Dwarf (5 points)

G'day Everyone,

Santa has been a little busy these last few days, which explains his tardy exit from my painting desk, but it is good to get the first post done.

I had hoped to get this jolly fellow painted up before the family merriment began, but good food and company won.

This is my 10 Year Challenge Anniversary, and it is fitting that this figure was a Christmas gift from a fellow Odin's Night Games Club member this year, as they were the good gentlemen that got me involved in the challenge in the first place. I promised this would be my first entry.

Santa Dwarf is a 28 mm metal figure from Reaper Miniatures and is clearly enjoying himself this festive season. He should be worth 5 runs on the board please.

Cheers,

Steve

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The Challenge welcomes you back for your 10th edition, Stephen! Bravo!

That is a very jolly Santa and wonderfully painted to boot. I especially like his drinking horn, crown of holly and plate of vittles - this guy knows how to party, probably just finished his run around the world, spreading joy and good cheer. Well done to you both!

- Curt

From PaulSS: Barons ' War - 90pts

 

Greetings of the Season to you all.

My first entry for Challenge XVI and for those that follow my socials, it's probably unsurprisingly more Wargames Atlantic figures for the growing Barons' War collection.

Having no figures at all for this I picked up some at Partizan back in May and have been running a production line ever since, now stands at 400 figures strong, more than enough for two armies for our Midgard games set in the Second Barons' War.

Mounted Knights

Mounted Knights

I paint in batches of four figures and this post represents four batches so you'll see the same colour ways repeated a lot in this post, but once added to the rest of the force they blend into rest.

Foot Knights

Foot Knight

Mounted Serjeants

Mounted Serjeants

The standards are hand painted on sticker paper then plasticised with Mod Podge to give them a bit of life and durability.

Militia

Militia

The Wargames Atlantic sets are great for kit bashing, these Militia are bodies from the Peasants set with arms and some heads from the Serjeants set.

Sir Walter D'isney?

Sir Walter D'isney

The final figures is not a Wargames Atlantic, I'm pretty certain it's the Partizan 2024 figure for Sir Walter D'isney, but I may be mistaken. If you recognise it, please do let me know.

There are load of spare shields in the Wargames Atlantic sets, so I always paint a few more in each batch and use them as stamina markers in our Midgard games.

These figures represented the last of the Wargames Atlantic from my backlog, but family were very kind and more Foot Knights and Peasants were left under the tree.

To get my score rolling, four 28mm mounted and 10 28mm foot should put 90pts on the board.

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First, Paul, welcome back to the Painting Challenge!  

I admire your industriousness on this project. 400 figures completed since May is very impressive, especially at this level of quality.  This assortment you treat us with is lovely, displaying your signature clean brushwork and punchy colour palette. We look forward to your Christmas reinforcements in a future post! Well done!

- Curt

From Paul O'G: Astartes Apothecary (9 points)

Hello everyone! Returning for my 11th (non-consecutive) Challenge - this time in a new hemisphere which means it feels like I started a day earlier than usual! Love the new location but its a been a relatively dry year hobby-wise so I'm thrilled to be back at the brushes :-)

Opening my season is a Space Marine Apothecary I've been saving, really liking the evocative posing, having just extracted the progenoid from the deceased battle-brother at his feet. He stares contemplatively at it in remembrance of his fallen comrade before it joins the others he has dangling around his neck, speaking to other recent losses (and ultimately the complete futility of a grim darkness of a far future where there is only War, but I might be reading too much into that...)

My whole Black Templar army is painted in the very restricted "Zorn Palette" as a homage to GW illustrator John Blanche, which means only four colours are used (Black, Titanium White, Ochre Yellow and Red), which is a fun limitation to work with. Mars style basing matches the rest of my force.

Skullz: 7 (I feel they could have done more...)

Submitted for the usual 7 points for a 'heroically" scaled Primaris size model and maybe a couple more for the casualty figure? - a modest start but its great to be back!

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Paul! 

I was great to catch-up during the Antipodean Paint & Chat and I was curious to what you were working on, and now I know! You've done a fabulous job on this Apothecary, with his white armour and creepy medi-servo arms. The cracked red Martian soil gives a great counterpoint to these relatively monochrome figures. Terrific stuff.

7 points for this Primaris and a couple more for his poor, flattened battle-brother. I look forward to the other projects that I know you have on the burner!

- Curt

From KristoferD: Mercenary Reiters (48 points)

Hello everyone! I've been an avid lurker of the AHPC blog for over a decade, and the time has finally come to sign up and contribute something of my own. Due to other commitments in my life I've kept my target relatively light. Ideally this means I can finish the Challenge in March and still feel good about the progress. Some friends and I are going to the By Fire and Sword tournament in Krakow on March 21, which just sounds too good to be true when you look at the challenge end date, right? I already have a Polish and a Cossack force for By Fire and Sword, but since we're going abroad for this occasion I figured it was time to paint up a Swedish force to go with my accent. I bought a skirmish starter set and spent the weeks leading up to the challenge cleaning, assembling and priming the lot. By Fire and Sword is produced by Wargamer in Poland and their range has a lot variety. The quality is overall good, but I will admit to having had to sculpt a few heads and hands to compensate for miscasts (none in these pictures) and some of the older parts of the range is showing its age. Nevertheless, they paint up nicely as we shall (hopefully) see.

This first batch of my challenge consists of twelve (12) mercenary reiters. The Swedish army of the 1600's was highly dependant on mercenaries (not to mention a significant amount of French subsidies to pay for them). I've tried to keep the colours rather simple. The era is known for a quite lax view on uniforms, as in use what you can get your hands on. I imagine the further into a campaign a unit got, the less uniform it would have looked. I used Wargamer's own art, actual contemporary art and Helion books as inspiration. The paints are a mix of Vallejo Game and Model Colour. I'd specifically like to mention cavalry brown which is my absolute favourite paint for painting brown horses. I've been told I'm a bit of an odd wargamer who actually enjoys painting cavalry. Seeing as By Fire and Sword is pretty much an 'equestrian sport' it makes me wonder why it took me so long to get in to it? I also begs the question why my first army was the infantry oriented Cossacks? It must be that wargamer butterfly syndrome I assume.

The unit leader is wearing a sash which I dutifully painted light blue, even though the Swedish army more likely used straw tied to their hats as a field sign during this era.

I hope you've enjoyed the Reiters. I'll end with a tally of the points as requested by the organisers, and hope to be back soon again with more.

12 x 15mm mounted @ 4 points = 48 points

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First, welcome to the Challenge, Kristofer! I'm delighted to have you aboard with us this year.

I've played By Fire and Sword a few years ago and quite enjoyed it (I think Byron let me win...). I'm happy that the rules are thriving and that a tournament is on the books for spring.

As you say, for this period, the cavalry arm was the queen of the battlefield (especially in the later period) and your unit of mercenary reiters definitely look the business. I like the varied horse colours and irregular uniforms in this unit, very fitting for this kind of formation. I also admire your basing and groundwork. Very neat and tidy.

48 points it is! A great opening volley for your climb up the points ladder to your target. Well done, Kristofer! 

- Curt

KenR - 28mm Prussian Napoleonic Artillery (120 points)

 

Hello everyone, its great to be back in the swing of the Challenge again. And here is my slightly delayed first entry of this year, a 28mm Prussian Napoleonic 6pdr Foot Battery using Perry Miniatures.

There are 4 gun models each based separately with 4 crew on 60 x 90 bases and form part of an ongoing Plancenoit Project (both sides) and this will form one half of my main focus this year, Points wise there are 16 28mm figs at 5 pts each (80) plus 4 crew served weapons at 10 each (40) for a total of 120.

I was hoping to get these in before Christmas and had the figures done but when I went to the box of bases there were none the right size 😕 so I started on some Cavalry, then found some bases I could join together to get the right size so went back, to these !

I recently retired so I'm hoping to get a lot done this year and have set myself a huge but I think achievable target of 2500, so I better get a shift on. My other main project will be, surprise, surprise Italian Wars, I am expanding my Swiss, which I haven't touched for a while as well as some Spanish so expect to see some of those soon.

Behind the scenes Day 1 of the Challenge is always horses day for me, using my oil paint method it's much more efficient to do them in big batches so I had a load undercoated ready to go and did the oil wipe stage on Day 1, getting some Italian Wars, Napoleonic and Crusades stuff ready. The horses are all dry now and I'm working on some already, they all need hooves, saddles, reigns etc painting but a good start.

Some Cavalry next then onto some Swiss.

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Welcome back to the Challenge, Ken! Congratulations on your recent retirement. It must be so nice to be able to focus on the fun things in life like playing games and painting toy soldiers. Sounds like bliss to me!

Your Prussian guns look terrific and ready to lay down some fire on the perfidious French. 

I look forward to seeing your Plancenoit project come into being. Now, bring on the cavalry! 

- Curt